Cardiff wrote:I have stated my views above, its the same view that many expressed about the student tower on park place in thats its massing is out of scale with the area, the materials dont reflect the buildings near by, the design is pretty poor for the area and the historic nature of the street will be diminished by it. This is not however reason to stop a development and money does the talking as with all developments, i am not naive enough to think that a desire to make Church St. more historical will actually make it so.

A building being bigger ( or smaller ) than previous buildings is not an issue. ( blocking light can be a legitimate issue for concern though )When park place was built those buildings where way out of scale with what was there before, which i believe where a few random cottages. The victorian building of that era did not reflect in anyway what was there before. They where gothic and grecian inspired homages not country cottages.

Cardiff wrote:I have a romance for great streetscapes with cohesive architecture and areas of the city that have a sense of place. Ultimately i would prefer this part of the city to enhance its historical charm, and you would prefer they built whatever as long as its better than what was there before. Church street looks a mess at the moment, it feels neither historic or part of the Castle quarter, yet this is the oldest part of the city center and anything to enhance this i feel is a positive to residents and tourists.

Many people prefer variety rather than homogenous street scapes. To me this is what makes London so much more interesting than Paris. It also give people of each age to contribute there own unique take on architecture.

Cardiff wrote:I simply can not understand the logic that when building new buildings, no consideration should be given to the historic context its being built in. This is the mindset that resulted in so many failed post war development and why many British cities have been considered ugly for many years and is being addressed in many cities now (including Cardiff). This to me smacks of failed thinking that is now becoming old fashioned.

Many post war developments where poor because of their design not because they didn't fit with what was there before.The two concepts are simply not the same issue.There are in fact many example of good well designed post war developments.

Cardiff and Cardiffian. I find myself agreeing with Cardiff on the principle, and Cardiffian on the particular instance.

Clearly the context of a building matters for its design. I would have thought its a view held by most architects. Bodies like the DCfW certainly do. That includes scale, massing, and yes - design. Now thats not a reason to keep things in aspic. You could have bold new designs in historic areas. But it probably means either keeping close to the prevailing historic style; or doing something high quality and contrastingly modern. It doesn't mean a generic modern building with poor quality materials next to an old timber framed Tudor or grand Georgian or ornate Victorian building.

In this instance though, Church Street doesn't have a historic streetscape to speak of. Buildings are of different styles, different eras. So there is no real historical style to match with or to contrast against.

What this probably comes down to is the design itself. Its pretty uninspiring but its not actively ugly. Its probably what we can expect in a location like this.

One idea to make it nicer/more interesting. Could they try to do a living wall? e.g. with creeping plants, etc. That would be good for the environment (bees, insects); might look a bit more interesting; and would be both modern and historic at the same time!

Church Street is really not great in terms of architecture. I wouldn't want a new building to pastiche whats there already as I don't think there are any buildings worth pastiching (if thats a word). This addition - in my opinion - has to be relatively bland to fit in. Had it been something ambitious and cutting edge it would have detracted from the church and would have been much worse (again in my opinion).

The new building - with 4 tenants already lined up - will create a huge amount of activity in a relatively narrow street. I think it will be a mini version of Mill Lane (another road with relatively modest architecture) and may create some further activity in High Street.

Interesting that Church St Harvester closed down the other day - let's hope the plot is occupied by a bar/restaurant that fits in well with 'the new church st'. It's probably a reasonable size, we'll have to watch that space.

RandomComment wrote:Clearly the context of a building matters for its design. I would have thought its a view held by most architects. Bodies like the DCfW certainly do. That includes scale, massing, and yes - design.

Usually the above are just ways to justify a design choice and get planners to agree to a design. Thats is a different thing than saying a building must reflect what is a round it at the time it is built because there is some deeper principle of beauty or style found in emulating the current landscape. The reason some planners like homogenous design is for the same reason some people do, its just opinion. Different planning team different opinion.

Think it through, how often is this really the case that a built environment is homogenous? Walk down almost any street and any city in the world ( even Paris ) and what you'll find many examples of buildings at contrast to their surroundings. Whether you think they detract or not is just a matter of opinion.

Re Harvester the Wales Online article quotes the Mitchells and Butler website (who own the brand) as saying

A statement also appeared on the web page for that particular branch which reads: "We have now closed our doors as Harvester restaurant to make way for something new and exciting."

That may suggest that they will be using the premises for one of their other brands. They own All Bar One which doesn't have a branch in Cardiff, Browns (which was open but shut down a few years ago), Miller and Carter, O'Neils etc

Karl wrote:Re Harvester the Wales Online article quotes the Mitchells and Butler website (who own the brand) as saying

A statement also appeared on the web page for that particular branch which reads: "We have now closed our doors as Harvester restaurant to make way for something new and exciting."

That may suggest that they will be using the premises for one of their other brands. They own All Bar One which doesn't have a branch in Cardiff, Browns (which was open but shut down a few years ago), Miller and Carter, O'Neils etc

Ugh, not another Miller & Carter, there's a huge one on The Hayes nearby so doubt it. Brown's would be better, All Bar One would be ok too. Always thought opening a Harvester in town was very odd.

Looks like the Harverster will now be called the Head of Steam. This appears to be a chain (mostly northern) run by Camerons Brewery with craft beers, cask ales, live music etc. See link for a taster -